1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tape arrangement which includes a single reel cartridge and, more specifically, to a tape drive arrangement which has a take-up hub construction that facilitates reeling in and promotes the formation of highly circular tape windings on the take-up hub.
2. Description of the Related Art
A number of single reel cartridge/drive arrangements have been proposed. However, most of these single reel cartridge/drive arrangements are directed to mass storage systems, such as the IBM 3480 system, and/or are associated with mass storage arrangements, such as mentioned in U.S. Pat. No. 4,972,277 to Sills et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,454,681 to Baur. Examples of the cartridge/drive arrangements used in the above mentioned systems can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,202,809 to Dodt et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,155,639 to Platter et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,987,504 to Inoue; U.S. Pat. No. 4,826,101 to Smith, and. U.S. Pat. No. 4,679,747 to Smith;.
However, these single reel cartridge/drive arrangements tend to be both complex and bulky due to the manner in which the ends of the tapes are captured by a pivotal arm type of arrangement upon insertion of a cartridge into a drive. This bulkiness is not a particularly significant problem in mass storage systems wherein the banks of tapes dwarf the tape drive; however, bulkiness tends to inhibit their use in personal computing systems. That is to say, these types of arrangements cannot be readily incorporated into the relatively small housing (often referred to as a "tower") associated with personal computers in which the CPU, hard disc, floppy disc, CD drives etc., are enclosed.
Accordingly, there is a need for a highly compact arrangement wherein so called "streamer" types of tape and the like, can be withdrawn from a single reel cartridge and threaded into an operative configuration in the drive, ready for the transfer of large quantities of data.